The Marconi Museum hosted the yield winners of the NCGA 2005 yield contest representing Dekalb and Asgrow.
Singer Gary Morris performed before the awards portion of the evening, and he did an amazing job. It was a night of an unexpected flashback as Morris played “Wind Beneath My Wings,” which was the song my sixth class sang at our graduation. Yes, I am young, but that was quite a few years ago.
Farmers yielding impressive amounts such as 306 bushels/acre as the Mez-Farm in Bagley, Wisconsin did were surrounded by cars worth up to one million dollars.
I’m not really touching this million-dollar 1999 Jaguar Roadster Concept car. It was at the Marconi on loan, and goodness, it was a great looking car.
It was a night of celebration, a night of pride in hard work, and a night focusing on the promise of the future of agriculture and what high yields can mean toward renewable energies and the commodity markets. The 31 states that represented the winners in this contest, indicate the strong national production that U.S. farmers can be very proud of.
One of the announcements made today was that next year’s Commodity Classic will include the National Association of Wheat Growers. So we’ll have a tri-commodity shindig in Tampa.
The Ethanol Promotion & Information Council wants you to experience fuel performance at 220 miles per hour. As they say, “There’s nothing Mickey Mouse about that.”
A lot of people are entering our 
Also speaking out at the opening press conference was the ASA president, Bob Metz. Bob is proud of the progress being made with biodiesel and thinks that soybean growers need to get involved in the organization to make their voice heard. It’s a grassroots effort he says. That’s what’s going on here at policy issues are discussed and the membership provides guidance for the staff of the organization to work on in the coming year.
I love Michael Peterson! He is here at the 2006 Commodity Classic promoting his new CD “Down on the Farm”. He was gracious enough to give me his signature and take a picture with Margy and I and Chuck was kind enough to get us a signed copy of his new CD!!! 
For those of you who may be confused, Michael Peterson is a country singer who sang the songs Drink, Swear, Steal, and Lie and From Here to Eternity, just to name a few. He is a wonderful artist. He is performing tomorrow at the general session. 
The first press conference here at Commodity Classic is always with the leadership of NCGA and ASA. Next year that will include NAWG, but more on that later. To get us started I interviewed NCGA President, Gerald Tumbleson.
Already, I’ve had a chance to sit in a copy of the ethanol powered Indy car.
I asked the college bloggers to think creatively and find some pictures to post. Here’s another one Margy came up with. The post title is hers too.
Margy took a picture at the NCGA booth because she thought this was such an interesting collection of products made from corn.